Swat after the peace deal
AFTER the government of NWFP signed a peace deal with the hardliner militants of Maulana Fazlullah in Swat on May 21, the enlightened population of Swat believed that the situation in the scenic valley would normalise within a short span of time.
Under the deal, the government and the hardliner Fazlullah’s militia had agreed that Sharia law would be imposed, the Pakistan army would gradually withdraw, the government and the Taliban would exchange prisoners, the Taliban would recognise the writ of the government, halt attacks on barber shops and music shops. The Taliban will not operate training camps, a ban would be placed on raising private militias, the Taliban would turn in heavy weapons, denounce suicide attacks and would cooperate in vaccination drives. Mamderhai Markaz of Fazlullah would be turned into an Islamic University and the Taliban would allow women to perform their duties in their workplace without fear.
Irrespective of how the deal was portrayed in the western, Indian and Afghan media, not to speak of the American corporate media, unstructured interviews with a cross-section of the population from different parts of Swat depict two apparently contradictory scenarios. It seems a majority of the population in Swat has already formed its own opinion about the deal almost a month after it was signed by the NWFP government apparently with the consent of the federal government.
The first scenario: the urban centres are open, suicide bombing has stopped, mobility of people in the towns has increased but very little business activity is taking place. “Hotels have recorded a loss of Rs3bn since May 2007 in the length and breadth of Swat. If you assume that a tourist spends ten times more than what he/she spends on his boarding, the figure for the loss suffered by only the tourism industry goes up to Rs30bn,” says Zahid Khan, President, All Swat Hotels Association. Khan doubts if there will be a revival of the industry considering the vulnerable security situation caused by the confrontation between the Taliban and the security forces.
The second scenario: the Taliban have strong control over the upper parts of Swat and some parts of Kabal. They continue to hold trials for trivial disputes in a village of Matta called Budegram while the complicated disputes among the people are transferred to Peochar, the present headquarters of the hardliner militia of Maulana Fazlullah.
The Taliban continue running training camps in the maze of interlinked hills of Shaur-Peochar-Deolai and then to Khal, Dir — a district neighbouring Swat, where they have recently been reported to have burnt a few schools for girls. These days one hears more of Syed Agha, a Taliban commander and trainer of Afghan origin, and Bakht Farzand Khan, the reported governor of Matta of the Taliban militia, more than Muslim Khan and Ali Bakht who represented the Fazlullah militia in talks with the provincial government.
The Taliban in the meanwhile have been instrumental in stopping the deforestation in the hills of Sakhra and have exhorted the local population of Bamakhela, a village in Matta, to construct a proper drainage system. They had even initiated the distribution of the hills of Sambat, previously claimed by the local Khans, among the landless population of the village, but just fell short of implementing their system of redistribution. The Taliban seem to have replaced the local Khans in dispensing speedy justice to the landless population of the area.
In upper Swat, the local elite have yet to claim their captured orchards. The locals claim that the Taliban stay in those orchards in the day time and climb the hills in the night. There is strong indication that even the male civilian functionaries of the government are yet to resume their regular duties. Matta, Sambat, Namal, Nokhara, Shaur, Pecochar in upper Swat and some parts of Kabal are actually being governed by the Taliban.
All the principles of social interaction and individual behaviour in these areas are expected to be observed according to the Salafi code of Islam. Some locals are of the opinion that the Taliban are also involved in cutting trees and bringing them down to the lower parts of Swat in connivance with the local forestry department. In the rest of the valley, most of the people seem to be confused about who the real governors are in their region.
The provincial government had assumed that it would be able to break up alliances and networks within the Taliban Salafi jihadist organisations. Evidence on the other hand shows that the Taliban networks are capable of breaking up alliances in the government. The recent controversy between the provincial and central governments amply proves the point.
Some local analysts point out even a more sinister aspect of this story of peace and peace deals. Keeping in view the common perception of the people about the presence of men of Jaish-i-Mohammad and Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan in Swat valley, they believe that the peace deals might give an open space to militants of all hues and cries to expand their bases.
The result of this process would be an attack from the US either directly or through the Afghan government. This, if it happens, will undoubtedly lead to the disintegration of certain areas from mainstream Pakistan as well as from the mainstream Pashtun belt. This proposition may look far-fetched but keeping in view the recent attacks by the US drones in the border regions of Pakistan and the aggressive comments by Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, one is tempted to take this analysis seriously.
Some observers in Swat believe that civil society organisations, political activists, professionals and middle class businessmen have to start working with confidence. They suggest that the huge loss the people have incurred due to the high intensity conflict in the last two years, damage done to infrastructure, especially residential places, schools and hospitals, frequent power cuts and skyrocketing prices have made the lives of the common people in Swat miserable.
In the recently announced central and provincial budgets, no consideration appears to have been given to the affected areas of Fata and NWFP, especially the scenic Swat valley. A $4bn peace plan by the provincial government that we heard of last month in a section of the press seems to have either been shelved or put on the back burner.
The general impression one gets from observing the situation on the ground is that if the deal was meant to obtain a temporary respite from suicide attacks and attacks on government installations, the objective has apparently been achieved. On all other counts, the implementation of the deal seems to have run into serious trouble.
The writer is a coordinator for Aryana Institute for Regional Research and Advocacy.
Khadim.2005@gmail.com
Time for difficult decisions
THE budget presented by the new government on June 11 missed an opportunity to prevent the economy from completely going off the track.
As previous administrations have done during periods of economic stress, Islamabad’s policymakers have once again chosen the easy approach. Rather than opt for changing the structure of the economy so that it will not go through crises every few years, Islamabad has papered over the problems it has to deal with.
The solutions I am proposing will be politically difficult since they will impose some burden on powerful constituencies. It is the job of the politicians to resolve these political conflicts; if they walk away from them, they are not earning their living.
The present crisis is the result of the faulty policies pursued in the five-year period between 2002 and 2007 when the economy was allowed to expand without any worry about the stresses that the expansion may produce. The consequence of this misguided approach was the neglect of some of the sectors that should have produced the supplies needed by the expanding economy.
This is precisely what happened to the sectors of agriculture and energy. For some inexplicable reason, the previous administration did not invest in electric power generation or on increasing the supply of natural gas. At the same time it encouraged village electrification and added more areas to the gas grids. The demand for these two essential commodities increased while their supply remained severely constrained.
The process of adjustment that has been forced upon the current administration will have to take place when the global economy itself is under great strain. Having given up development planning, the annual budget exercise is the only occasion when the government takes a careful look at the economy and lays down the policy framework for developing it.
The amount of economic power that was captured by the finance ministry since 1999 has meant that the Planning Commission lost the role it used to play. While the ‘Q’ block captured power, it did not acquire the capacity to do serious analytical work. During the latter part of the Musharraf period, policymaking led by finance, was ad-hoc and opportunistic.
Given the difficult economic situation that confronts the country today, it must develop a coherent strategy aimed at both reviving the economy and placing it on a high growth strategy. In addition the model of development should include two additional objectives – reducing the incidence of poverty and narrowing the inter-personal and inter-regional income distribution gaps. I will today focus on two aspects of the strategy that needs to be formulated: to develop the sectors whose development needs immediate attention, and to reduce macroeconomic deficits.
In this context, the policymaker must ask and then find answers to the following four questions. One, what to do with domestic prices when most experts agree that we are witnessing a paradigm shift in the prices of agricultural commodities? Two, what should be the response to the increase in the price of oil, an important item of import for the country? Three, how should the government’s finances be improved to narrow the fiscal deficit so that it does not go beyond five per cent of GDP, which, in Pakistan’s conditions, is a sustainable level. And, four, what should be done to narrow the current account deficit and also bring it to a sustainable level of around four per cent of GDP?
In so far as the energy sector is concerned, the government should pass on the prevailing international prices to the consumers. Subsidising the consumption of petroleum products and natural gas places intolerable burden on the national exchequer. It also skews the pattern of demand which is not efficient for the economy. In fact, the price of petroleum products that are consumed by the well-to-do should not only reflect international prices. The government should also impose an additional levy from which some subsidies should be given on the products that are consumed by the poor.
The second area for policy attention is the sector of agriculture and, related to it, the prices of food gains for the poor consumers. Pakistan should take full advantage of the changes in agriculture’s terms of trade. This is the first time that agricultural prices have moved higher than the prices of manufactures and services. Allowed to be passed on to the producers, there should be a fairly quick supply response.
Subsidising the prices of food grains, limiting their movement or preventing their export are all akin to levying tax on agriculture and passing the revenue to the urban areas. Such an approach will keep the sector of agriculture under-developed. It will also keep millions of people poor who depend on agriculture for employment.
The third area of concern is the growing fiscal deficit. This ripples through the economy, affecting the level of prices, private sector investments and balance of payments. Pakistan has one of the lowest tax-to-GDP ratios of any major developing country. It barely acceded 10 per cent at the end of the Musharraf period. The total government expenditure approached one-fifth of the GDP. These ratios suggest a tax and expenditure regimes that need a total overhaul. The government should have a careful look at the tax policy, closing the loop-holes the rich have exploited to avoid paying their due share.
The share of the well-to-do in the taxes collected by the government needs to significantly increase; sub-national governments should play a larger role in mobilising tax revenues; incomes from all sources, including agriculture, should be taxed; speculative activities in real estate and stock markets should be discouraged by levying capital gains tax. On the expenditure side, duplication of work between national and provincial governments should be eliminated by transferring more functions to the governments at the sub-national levels.
The fourth area that needs government attention concerns trade. The only time Pakistan aggressively pursued export expansion was in the 1960s when the Ayub Khan government introduced the Export Bonus Voucher Scheme. The scheme allowed the exporters to earn large premiums financed by the importers. The country then had a dual exchange rate, one for exports and the other for imports.
In sum, considerable amount of analytical work needs to be done to reshape the Pakistani economy by devising the right kinds of public policy. The donor community could nudge the government by supporting a programme of deep structural change.
Towards a big thaw
The Mayflower Hotel in Washington DC has hosted many landmark political meetings. But few assignations will have been as important as the one taking place between Senator Barack Obama and Senator Hillary Clinton. It will be the first official joint appearance by the two titans of the Democratic party as they move towards healing the deep divisions in its ranks.
The pair will meet privately on Thursday with top Clinton donors. For Obama, the meeting is vital to bringing key fundraisers on board. But even more important is his need to reach out to Clinton’s huge support base, especially the women voters he needs to win the White House.
Key to that will be a public joint campaign appearance on Friday, a day after the Mayflower meeting. No details of where the event will take place have yet been released, but using it to win over Clinton’s loyal legions of female fans will be a top priority. Many have been left embittered by their candidate’s loss, levelling heartfelt, and sometimes justified, accusations of sexism at the media coverage of Clinton’s campaign.
But, with Clinton and Obama now set to hit the trail together, the big chill between the two is finally turning into a big thaw. ‘The campaign got so intense, especially in the last few weeks, that some people feel really attacked. He has to win them back,’ said Professor Tracy Osborn, an expert on women in politics at Iowa University.
So far the picture is mixed. Obama has received a bump in the polls since emerging as the victor in the Democratic contest. He is also comfortably ahead of Republican rival John McCain when it comes to women voters overall, beating him by 13 points in two recent polls. But the key demographic is likely to be suburban white women, who have been dubbed ‘soccer moms’ or ‘security moms’ by pollsters.
They are often the key swing voting bloc that can mean the difference between winning and losing the presidency. They were a Clinton demographic stronghold, and among them McCain now leads Obama by 44 per cent to 38. At the same time, polls show one in five Clinton supporters now intends to vote for McCain. That indicates there is much work to do for Obama and his staffers.
Last week Obama met half a dozen top Clinton fundraisers in Chicago. That will lay the ground for the Mayflower meeting, where Clinton has asked 100 of her top backers to gather. She will ask them to open their wallets for Obama’s already cash-rich campaign. Most have agreed to come but some, including Hollywood billionaire Haim Saban, have pointedly rejected the request.
Such rejections are worrying for Obama and his aides. But Clinton is showing no such qualms. Former members of her campaign staff say she is coming to terms with her defeat and overcoming McCain is at the top of her list of priorities.
There are many issues to be ironed out in the awkward peace talks between Clinton and Obama. First, there is the issue of Clinton’s huge campaign debt. She wants Obama’s help in paying it off. Then there is the issue of what role she might play at the Denver convention and in any future Obama presidency. Though she lost the nomination fight, there is little doubt that Clinton still carries huge influence.
But there is little doubt that Obama has launched a media blitz to win over Clinton’s female supporters. That includes carefully rolling out a series of appearances by Michelle Obama, who was a guest on the daily talk show The View last week.
There have already been missteps and signs of trouble ahead. Clinton’s former campaign manager, Patti Solis Doyle, has recently been appointed to be chief of staff to whoever Obama finally picks as running mate. The move was seen as a huge snub to Clinton and her supporters as Clinton fired Solis Doyle and the two have reportedly not spoken since. The decision certainly seemed to scotch any hopes among Clinton’s female supporters that she would join Obama on a unified ticket.
So did poll data from Quinnipiac University’s Polling Institute. It showed independent voters –– another key bloc –– were turned off by a Clinton-Obama ticket. That seems to illustrate one of the many problems left over by such a bruising nomination contest. Obama must now placate Clinton’s fans but at the same time not isolate those who dislike her. It is a difficult tightrope to walk.
But as the Mayflower meeting will show, the Democrats have at least buried their worst nightmare: a divided convention in Denver. Building a fragile peace is a lot better than preparing for a civil war and is the single, best way to court the soccer moms who wanted Hillary Clinton as President.—The Guardian